Adult Stories

That gets her attention. “What are you talking about? You are enough.”

“No, I’m not. How can I be? I’m the one shot, the heir and the spare, so you have to make damn sure your one investment pays off because there’s no backup.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re not an investment.”

“You treat me like one. You’ve poured all your expectations into me. It’s like I have to carry the load of hopes and dreams for all the kids you didn’t get to have.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in a quiet voice.

“Really? Medical school at thirteen. Come. On! What thirteen-year-old wants to go to medical school?”

For a moment, Mom looks likes she’s been punched in the gut. Then she places her hand on her stomach, as if covering the place of impact. “This thirteen-year-old.”

“What?” I’m totally confused now. But then I remember how in high school, Dad always sent me to Mom when I needed help with chem or bio, even though he was the doctor. And I can hear Mom reciting the pre-med requisites by heart when the college catalog came. And I think about the job she once had, doing public relations, but for a drug company. Then I remember what Grandma said to her at the disastrous Seder: That was always your dream.

“You?” I ask. “You wanted to be a doctor.”

She nods. “I was studying for the MCATs when I met your father. He was just in his first year of medical school and somehow found the time to tutor in his spare time. I took the tests, applied to ten schools, and didn’t get into one. Your father said it was because I didn’t have any lab experience. So I went to work at Glaxo, and I thought I’d apply again, but then your father and I got married, and I wound up moving over to PR, and then a few years went by, and we decided to start a family, and I didn’t want your father and me to both be in the midst of school and residencies with a small baby and then we had all the fertility issues. When we gave up on having another child, I quit working—because we could afford to live on your father’s income. I thought about applying again, but then I discovered I liked spending time with you. I didn’t want to be away from you.”

My head is spinning. “You always said you and Dad were set up.”

“We were. By the campus tutoring center. I never told you everything because I didn’t want you to feel like I’d given up on account of you.”

“You didn’t want me to know you’d quit when you were behind,” I clarify. Because isn’t that exactly what she did do?

Mom reaches out to grab my wrists. “No! Allyson, you’re wrong about quitting while you’re ahead. It means being grateful. Stopping when you realize what you have is enough.”

I don’t entirely believe her. “If that’s true, maybe you should quit while you’re ahead now—before things between us get really messed up.”

“Are you asking me to quit being your mother?”

At first I think the question is rhetorical, but then I see her looking at me, her eyes wide and fearful, and a little bit of my heart breaks to think she’d ever truly think that.

“No,” I say quietly. There’s a moment of silence as I steel myself to say the next thing. Mom stiffens, like she’s maybe steeling herself too. “But I am asking you to be a different kind of mother.”

She slumps back in her chair, I can’t tell if it’s in relief or defeat. “And what do I get out of this?”

For a brief second, I can picture us one day, having tea, me telling her all about what happened in Paris last summer, what will happen on this trip I’m about to take. One day. Just not yet.

“A different kind of daughter,” I say.

Twenty-eight

JULY

Home

I’ve bought my airplane ticket. I’ve paid for my French class, and even with both of those expenditures, I still have five hundred dollars saved by the end of a surprisingly busy and lucrative July Fourth weekend. Café Finlay closes on July 25, but unless things go disastrously in the next three weeks, I should have enough money saved by then.

Right after the Fourth of July, Melanie comes home. My parents told me she’d be back from camp for a week before heading off to a rafting trip in Colorado. By the time she gets back from that, I’ll be gone. And by the time I come back from Europe, it’ll be time for school. I wonder if the entire summer is going to pass, as the last six months have, as if our friendship never existed. When I see Melanie’s car in her driveway, I don’t say anything. Mom doesn’t either, which is how I know that she and Susan have discussed our falling-out.

French class comes to an end. During the last week, each of us has to give an oral presentation about something particularly French. I give mine on macarons, explaining their origins and how they’re made. I dress up in one of Babs’s chef aprons and wear a beret, and when I’m done, I hand out macarons that Babs made special for the class, along with Café Finlay postcards.

I am coming home from class in Mom’s car, which I’ve borrowed to lug all my presentation stuff, when I see Melanie in her driveway. She sees me too, and we look at each other for a moment. It’s like we’re asking each other, Are we both going to pretend the other doesn’t exist? That we don’t exist?

But we do exist. At least we used to. And so I wave to her. Then I walk toward the neutral territory of the sidewalk. Melanie does too. When she gets closer, her eyes widen. I look at my silly costume.

“French class,” I explain. “Here, do you want a macaron?” I pull out one of the extras that I was bringing home for Mom and Dad.

“Oh, thanks.” She takes a bite, and her eyes widen. I want to say, I know. But with all the months gone by, I don’t. Because maybe I don’t know. Not anymore.

“So French class?” she says. “We both did the summer-school thing this year, huh?”

“Right, you were in Portland. At a music program?”

Her eyes light up. “Yeah. It was intense. Not just playing, but composing and learning about different facets of the industry. We had these professionals come in to work with us. I composed an experimental piece that I’m going to produce at school next year.” Her whole face glows. “I think I’m going to major in music theory. What about you?”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure. I think I like languages.” In addition to Mandarin, this fall, I’ll take French, along with another Shakespeare class with Professor Glenny. Intro to Semiotics. And African Dance.

She looks up, hesitates for a second. “So, no Rehoboth Beach this summer?”

We’ve gone to the same summer house since I was five. But not this year. “Dad was invited to a conference in Hawaii, and he convinced Mom to go with him. As a personal favor to me, I think.”

“Because you’re going to Paris.”

“Right. I’m going to Paris.”

There’s a pause. In the background, I can hear the neighbor kids splashing around in the sprinklers. Just like Melanie and I used to.

“To find him.”

“I have to know. If something happened. I just need to find out.”

I brace myself for Melanie’s derision, for her to scoff or laugh at me. But she just considers what I’ve said. And when she says the next thing, it’s not snide so much as matter-of-fact: “Even if you find him. Even if he didn’t leave you on purpose, he can’t possibly live up to the person you’ve built him into.”

It’s not like the thought hasn’t occurred to me. I get that the chances of finding him are small, but the chances of finding him as I remember him are even smaller. But I just keep going back to what my dad always says, about how when you lose something, you have to visualize the last place you had it. And I found—and then lost—so many things in Paris.

“I know,” I tell Melanie. And it’s weird because I don’t feel defensive. I feel a little bit relieved because it almost seems like Melanie is worrying about me again. And also relieved because I’m not worrying about me. Not about this, anyhow. “I don’t know that it matters.”

Her eyes widen at that. Then she narrows them, looks me up and down. “You look different.”

I laugh. “No. I still look like me. It’s just this outfit.”

“It’s not the outfit,” Melanie says, almost harshly. “You just seem different.”

“Oh. Well . . . thanks?”

I look at Melanie, and for the first time, I notice how she seems. Which is utterly familiar. Like Melanie again. Her hair is growing out and is back to its natural color. She’s wearing cutoff shorts, a cute embroidered tee. No nose rings. No tats. No multicolored hair. No slutty-chic outfits. Of course, just because she looks the same has no bearing on whether she actually is the same. It hits me that Melanie’s year was probably was just as tumultuous as mine in ways that I didn’t understand, either.

Melanie is still staring at me. “I’m sorry,” she says at last.

“For what?” I ask.

“For forcing you to cut your hair in London when you weren’t ready. I felt so bad when you cried like that.”

“It’s okay. And I’m glad I did it.” And I am. Maybe he never would’ve stopped me had I not had the Louise Brooks hair. Or maybe he would’ve, and we would’ve exchanged actual names. I’ll never know. Once accidents happen, there’s no backtracking.

We both just stand there on the sidewalk, hands at our sides, unsure of what to say. I hear the neighbor kids yelp in the sprinklers. I think of me and Melanie when we were younger, on the high dive at the pool in Mexico. We would always hold hands as we jumped, but by the time we swam back up to the surface, we’d have let go. No matter how we tried, once we started swimming, we always let go. But after we bobbed to the surface, we’d climb out of the pool, clamber up the high-dive ladder, clasp hands, and do it again.

We’re swimming separately now. I get that. Maybe it’s just what you have to do to keep above water. But who knows? Maybe one day, we’ll climb out, grab hands, and jump again.

Twenty-nine

New York City

My parents want to drive me to JFK, but I’ve made plans to spend the day with Dee before I go, so they drop me off at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I’m going to take the train—my first train in a year—to Manhattan, and Dee will meet me at Penn Station. Tomorrow night, I catch my flight to London and then onward to Paris.

When my train is announced, we walk toward the platform. Dad taps his toes impatiently, visions of Maui golf courses dancing through his head. They leave on Monday. Mom just paces. Then when my train’s headlights are visible in the distance, she pulls a box out of her purse.

“I thought we weren’t doing presents this time.” Last year, there’d been the big dinner out, lots of little last-minute gadgets. Last night was more low-key. Homemade lasagna in the dining room. Both Mom and I pushed it around our plates.

“It’s less for you than for me.”

I open the box. Inside is a small cell phone with a charger and a plug adapter.

“You got me a new phone?”

“No. I mean yes. I mean, your old phone, we’ll unfreeze the plan when you get back. But this is a special quad-band phone. It definitely works in Europe. You just have to buy a . . . what are they called?” she asks Dad.

“SIM card.”

“Right.” She fumbles to flick open the back. “They’re very inexpensive, apparently. So you can get a local number anywhere you go and have a phone if you need one, and you can call us in an emergency or text us—but only if you choose to. It’s more for you, so you have a way to reach us. If you need to. But you don’t have to—”

“Mom,” I interrupt, “it’s okay. I’ll text you.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah! And you can text me back from Hawaii. And does this thing have a photo function?” I peer at the camera. “I’ll send you pictures.”

“You will?”

“Of course I will.”

By the look on her face, you’d think I’d given her the present.

Penn Station is mobbed, but I find Dee right away, under the departure board, wearing a pair of lemon-lime paneled nylon shorts and a tank top with UNICORNS ARE REAL emblazoned on it. He scoops me up in a big hug.

“Where’s your suitcase?” he asks.

I turn around, show off the olive backpack I got from the Army-Navy surplus store in Philadelphia.

Dee whistles. “How’d you fit your ball gown?”

“It folds down really small.”

“I thought you’d have a bigger bag, and I told Mama we’d come back home before we went out exploring, so she made lunch.”

“I like lunch.”

Dee throws up his hands. “Actually, Mama planned a surprise party for you. Don’t tell her I told.”

“A party? She doesn’t even know me.”

“She thinks she does by how much I talk about you, and she’ll use any excuse to cook. My family’s coming, including my cousin Tanya. I told you about her?”

“The one who does hair?”

Dee nods. “I asked her if she’d do yours. She does white-girl hair too, works in a fancy salon in Manhattan. I thought maybe you could get a bob again, go all Louise Brooks. Look just like you did when you met. You gotta do something with that mop.” He fingers my hair, up, as usual, in a clip.

We take the subway all the way uptown, to the last stop on the train. We get out and transfer to a bus. I look out the window, expecting the rough-and-tumble streets of the South Bronx, but the bus passes a bunch of pretty brick buildings all shaded by mature trees.

“This is the South Bronx?” I ask Dee.

“I never said I lived in the South Bronx.”

I look at him. “Are you serious? I’ve heard you say a bunch of times that you’re from the South Bronx.”

“I only said that I was from the Bronx. This is the Bronx, technically. It’s Riverdale.”

“But you told Kendra you were from the South Bronx. You told her you went to South Bronx High School. . . .” I pause, remembering that first conversation. “Which does not even exist.”

“I left the girl to her own jumped conclusions.” He gives me a knowing smirk. He rings the bell to get off the bus. We exit onto a busy street full of tall apartment buildings. It’s not fancy, but it’s nice.

“You are a master pretender, D’Angelo Harrison.”

“Takes one to know one. I am from the Bronx. And I am poor. If people want to translate that as ghetto boy, that’s their choice.” He smiles. “Especially if they want to throw scholarship money my way.”

We arrive at a pretty brick building with cracked gargoyles hanging over the front entrance. Dee rings the buzzer—“so they know we’re coming”—and then we take one of those ancient caged-in elevators to the fifth floor. Outside the front door, he looks at me and tucks some strands of stray hair behind my ear.

“Act surprised,” he whispers and opens the door.

We step into a party, about a dozen people crowded into the small living room where there’s a BON VOYAGE ALLYSON sign tacked up over a table laden with food. I look at Dee, eyes wide in shock.

“Surprise!” he says, twinkling jazz hands.

Dee’s mother, Sandra, comes up to me and wraps me in a gardenia-scented bear hug. “He told you, didn’t he? That was the worst look of surprise I ever saw. My baby couldn’t keep a secret if was stapled to him. Well, come on, then, meet the folk, have some food.”

Sandra, introduces me to various aunts and uncles and cousins and gives me a plate of barbecued chicken and mac and cheese and some greens and sits me down at a table. “Now you hold court.”

Dee has pretty much told everyone about Willem, so they all have advice on how to track him down. Then they start peppering me with questions about the trip. How I’m getting there—a flight from New York to London and then on to Paris—and where I’m staying—a youth hostel in the Villette area Willem and I hung out in, twenty-five bucks a night for a dorm—and how I’ll get around—with the help of a guidebook, and I will brave the Metro. And they ask about Paris, and I tell them about what I saw last year, and they’re very interested to hear how diverse it was, about the sections that were full of Africans and then this starts a big debate about which African countries France colonized until someone goes for a map to figure it out.

While everyone pores over the atlas, Sandra comes up with a plate of peach cobbler. “I got you a little something,” she says, handing me a thin package.

“Oh, you shouldn’t—”

She waves away my objections like stale air. I open the package. Inside is a laminated map of Paris. “The man at the store said this would be ‘indispensable.’ It has all the subway stops and an index of major streets.” She opens the map to show me. “And D’Angelo and I spent so many hours looking at it, it has our good blessings coursing through it.”

“Then I’ll never get lost again.”

She folds the map up and puts it in my hands. She has the same eyes as Dee. “I want to thank you for helping my boy this year.”

“Me helping Dee?” I shake my head. “I think you have it the other way around.”

“I know exactly the way I have it,” she says.

“No, seriously. All Dee has done is help me. It’s almost embarrassing.”

“Stop with such nonsense. D’Angelo is both brilliant and blessed with the road life has taken him on. But it’s not been easy for him. In his four years of high school and one year of college, you are the first friend from school he’s ever talked about, much less brought home.”

“You two are talking about me, aren’t you?” Dee asks. He puts an arm around each of us. “Extolling my brilliance?”

“Extolling your something,” I say.

“Don’t either of you believe a word!” He turns around to introduce a tall, regal girl with a head full of intricate twists. “I was telling you about Tanya.”

We exchange hellos, and Sandra goes off to fetch some more cobbler. Tanya reaches out to free my hair from its clip. She fingers the ends and shakes her head, clucking her tongue the same disapproving way Dee so often does.

“I know. I know. It’s been a year,” I say. And then I realize it has. A year.

“Was it short or long?” Dee asks. He turns to Tanya. “You have to make her look just the same. For when she finds him.”

“If I find him,” I clarify. “It was to here.” I point to the base of my skull, where the stylist in London had cut my hair to last year. But then I drop my hand. “You know, though. I don’t think I want the bob.”

“You don’t want a haircut?” Tanya asks.

“No, I would love a haircut,” I tell her. “But not a bob. I want to try something totally new.”

Thirty

Paris

It takes approximately thirteen hours and six time zones for me to freak out.

It happens when I stumble into the arrivals hall of Charles de Gaulle airport. All around me, other passengers are being greeted by hugging relatives or drivers with signs. I’m not being met by anyone. No one is expecting me. No one is watching out for me. I know I have people out there in the world who love me, but right now, I’ve never felt so alone. I feel that flashing sign click on over my head, the one that used to read TOURIST. Only now it also reads WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

I pull my backpack straps tighter around my chest, like they could hug me. I take a deep breath. I pick up one leg and put it in front the other. A step. I take another. And another. I pull out the to-do list I made on the plane. Number one: exchange money.

I go to one of the many foreign exchange bureaus and in halting French ask if I can exchange my dollars. “Of course. This is a bank,” the man behind the counter answers in French. I hand over a hundred dollars and am too relieved to bother to count the euros I get in return.

Next on the list: find youth hostel. I’ve mapped the route, a train to the city, then a Metro to the Jaurès stop. I follow the signs for the RER, the train to central Paris, but it turns out I have to take an airport train to get to the RER station, and I go the wrong way and wind up at a different terminal and have to double back around, so it takes me almost an hour just to get to the airport train station.

When I get up to the automated ticket machines, it’s like facing off against an enemy. Even with choosing English as the language, the instructions are bewildering. Do I need a Metro ticket? A train ticket? Two tickets? I feel that neon sign over my flash brighter. Now it says WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?

I open the guidebook again to the section about getting into Paris. Okay, one ticket will get me into Paris and transfer to the Metro. I look at the map of the Paris Metro. The different lines knot together like snakes. Finally, I locate my stop, Jaurès. I trace the RER line to the airport to the transfer point and realize with a start that it’s at Gare du Nord. Someplace familiar, someplace to tie me to that day.

“Okay, Allyson, no way through it but through it,” I tell myself. And then I face the ticket machine, shoulders back, like we are competitors in a duel. I punch the touch screen, feed it a ten-euro note and then it spits me back some change and a tiny ticket. A small victory against an impassive opponent, but I am flush with satisfaction.

I follow the throngs to the gates, which work like the Tube gates, though it turns out, it’s much easier to get through them when you’re not lugging a giant suitcase. Ha! Another enemy foiled.

In the Metro/RER interchange beneath Gare du Nord, I get lost again trying to find the right Metro line, and then I misplace my little ticket, which you need not only to get out of RER but into the Metro. Then I almost get on the Metro going the wrong direction but figure it out right before the doors close and jump off. When I finally arrive at my stop, I’m completely exhausted and totally disoriented. It takes about fifteen minutes poring over the map just to figure where I am. I take a half dozen more wrong turns until I hit the canals, which is the first sign that I’m in the right area.

But I still have no idea where the hostel is, and I’m exhausted, frustrated, and near tears. I can’t even find the hostel. And I have an address. And a map. What in the world makes me think I can find him?

But then just when I’m about to lose it, I stop, look out at the canals, and I just breathe. And my panic subsides. Because this place, it feels familiar. It is familiar, because I’ve been here before.

I fold up my map and put it away. I breathe some more. I look around. There are the same gray bicycles. There are the same stylish women, teetering across the cobblestones on heels. The cafés, crowded, as though no one ever has to work. I take another deep breath, and a sort of sense memory takes over. And somehow I just know where I am. To the left is the park with the lake where we met Jacques and the Danes. To my right, a few blocks back, is the cafe where we had crêpes. I take the map out again. I find myself. Five minutes later, I’m at the youth hostel.

My room is on the sixth floor, and the elevator is out of order, so I walk up a winding stairway. A guy with a tattoo of some sort of Greek god on his arm points out the breakfast room, the communal bathrooms (coed), and then my room, with seven beds. He gives me a lock and shows me where I can store my stuff when I go out. Then he leaves me with a bonne chance, which means good luck, and I wonder if he says that to everyone or if he senses that I’ll need it.

I sit down on the bed and unhook the sleeping bag from the top of my backpack, and as I slump into the springy mattress, I wonder if Willem has stayed here. Has slept in this very bed. It’s not likely, but it’s not impossible either. This is the neighborhood he introduced me to. And everything seems possible right now, this feeling of rightness, throbbing right alongside my heartbeat, soothing me to sleep.

I wake up a few hours later with drool on my pillow and static in my head. I take a lukewarm shower, shampooing the jet lag out of my hair. Then I towel it try and put in the gel like Tanya showed me—wash and wear, she said. It’s very different, all chunks and layers, and I like it.

Downstairs, the clock on the lobby wall behind the giant spray-painted peace sign reads seven o’clock; I haven’t eaten anything since the hard roll and yogurt they gave me on the plane over from London, and I’m woozy with hunger. The little café in the lobby only serves drinks. I know that part of traveling alone means eating alone and ordering in French, and I practiced that a lot with Madame Lambert. And it’s not like I haven’t eaten alone plenty of times in the dining hall this past year. But I decide I’ve conquered enough things for one day. Tonight, I can get a sandwich and eat in my room.

In front of the hostel, a bunch of people are hanging out in the drizzle. They’re speaking English in what I think are Australian accents. I take a breath and walk over and ask them if they know of a place to get a good sandwich nearby.

One muscular girl with streaky brown hair and a ruddy face turns to me and smiles brightly. “Oh, there’s a place over the canal that makes gorgeous smoked salmon sandwiches,” she says. She points out the way and then she resumes talking to her friend about a bistro that supposedly sells a prix fixe for twelve euro, fifteen with a glass of wine.

My mouth waters at the mere thought of it, the food, the company. It seems incredibly presumptuous to invite myself, the kind of thing I would never do.

But then again, I’m alone in Paris, so this is all virgin territory. I tap the Australian girl on her sunburnt shoulder and ask if I can tag along with them for dinner. “It’s my first day traveling, and I’m not sure where to go,” I explain.

“Good on you,” she replies. “We’ve all been at it for ages. We’re on our OAs.”

“OAs?”

“Overseas Adventures. It’s so bloody expensive to get out of Australia that once you go, you stay gone. I’m Kelly, by the way. This is Mick, that’s Nick, that’s Nico, short for Nicola, and that’s Shazzer. She’s from England, but we love her anyway.”

Shazzer sticks her tongue out at Kelly, smiles at me.

“I’m Allyson.”

“That’s my mum’s name!” Kelly says. “And I was just saying I was missing my mum! Wasn’t I? It’s karma!”

“Kismet,” Nico corrects.

“That too.”

Kelly looks at me, and for half a second, I stand there, because she hasn’t said yes and I’m going to feel like an idiot if she says no. Still, maybe it’s all that prep in French class, but I’m kind of okay with feeling like an idiot. The group starts to walk off, and I start to turn toward the sandwich place. Then Kelly turns around.

“Come on, then,” she says to me. “Don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”

“You might do. They eat those here,” Shazzer says.

“No they don’t,” one of the guys says. Mick or Nick. I’m not quite sure who’s who.

“That’s Japan,” Nico says. “It’s a delicacy there.”

We start walking, and I listen as the rest of them argue over whether or not the French eat horse meat, and as I amble along, it hits me that I’m doing it. Going to dinner. In Paris. With people I met five minutes ago. Somehow, more than anything else that’s happened in the last year, this blows my mind.

On the way to the restaurant, we stop so I can get a SIM card for my phone. Then, after getting slightly lost, we find the place and wait for a table big enough to seat us all. The menu’s in French, but I can understand it. I order a delicious salad with beets that’s so beautiful I take a picture of it to text my mom. She immediately texts me back the less artful looking loco moco that Dad is having for breakfast. For my entrée, it’s some kind of mystery fish in a peppery sauce. I’m having such a nice time, mostly listening to their outrageous travel tales, that it’s only when it’s time for dessert that I remember my promise to Babs. I check out the menu, but there are no macarons on it. It’s already ten o’clock, and the shops are closed. Day one, and I’ve already blown my promise.

“Shit,” I say. “Or make that merde!”

“What’s wrong?” Mick/Nick asks.’’

I explain about the macarons, and everyone listens, rapt.

“You should ask the waiter,” Nico says. “I used to work at a place in Sydney, and we had a whole menu that wasn’t on the menu. For VIPs.” We all give her a look. “It never hurts to ask.”

So I do. I explain, in French that would make Madame Lambert proud, about ma promesse du manger des macarons tous les jours. The waiter listens intently, as though this is serious business and goes into the kitchen. He returns with everyone else’s dessert—crèmes brûlée and chocolate mousse—and, miraculously, one perfect creamy macaron just for me. The inside is filled with brown, sweet, gritty paste, figs I think. It’s dusted with powdered sugar so artfully it’s like a painting. I take another picture. Then I eat it.

By eleven o’clock, I’m falling asleep into my plate. The rest of the group drops me off back at the hostel before going out to hear some French all-girl band play. I fall into a dead sleep and wake up in the morning to discover that Kelly, Nico, and Shazzer are my dorm mates.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Late! Ten o’clock,” says Kelly. “You slept ages. And through such a racket. There’s a Russian girl who blow-dries her hair for an hour every day. I waited for you to see if you wanted to come with us. We’re all going to Père Lachaise Cemetery today. We’re going to have a picnic. Which sounds bloody morbid to me, but apparently French people do it all the time.”

It’s tempting: to go with Kelly and her friends and spend my two weeks in Paris being a tourist, having fun. I wouldn’t have to go to dank nightclubs. I wouldn’t have to face Céline. I wouldn’t have to risk getting my heart broken all over again.

“Maybe I’ll meet up with you later,” I tell her. “I’ve got something to do today.”

“Right. You’re on an epic quest for macarons.”

“Right,” I say. “That.”

At breakfast, I spend a little time with my map, figuring out the route between the hostel and Gare du Nord. It’s walking distance, so I set out. The route seems familiar, the big wide boulevard with the bike paths and sidewalks in the middle. But as I get closer to the station, I start to feel sick to my stomach, the tea I had a while ago coming back to my mouth, all acidic with fear.

At Gare du Nord, I stall for time. I go in the station. I wander over to the Eurostar tracks. There’s one there, like a horse waiting to leave the gate. I think of when I was here a year ago, broken, scared, running back to Ms. Foley.

I force myself to leave the station, letting my memory guide me again. I turn. I turn again. I turn once more. Over the train tracks and into the industrial neighborhood. And then, there it is. It’s kind of shocking, after all that searching online, how easy it is to find. I wonder if this one wasn’t listed on Google, or if it was and maybe my French was so mangled that no one understood me.

Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe I was perfectly understood and Céline and the Giant simply don’t work here anymore. A year is a long time. A lot can change!

When I open the door and see a younger-looking man with hair in a ponytail behind the bar, I almost cry out in disappointment. Where is the Giant? What if he’s not here? What if she’s not here?

“Excusez moi, je cherche Céline ou un barman qui vient du Sénégal.”

He says nothing. Doesn’t even respond. He just continues washing glasses in soapy water.

Did I speak? Was it in French? I try again: I add a s’il vous plaît this time. He gives me a quick look, pulls out his phone, texts something, and then goes back to dishes.

Con, I mutter in French, another of Nathaniel’s teachings. I shove open the door, adrenaline pushing through me. I’m so angry at that jerk behind the counter who wouldn’t even answer me, at myself, for coming all this way for nothing.

“You came back!”

And I look up. And it’s him.

“I knew you would come back.” The Giant takes my hand and kisses me on each cheek, just like the last time. “For the suitcase, non?”

I’m speechless. So I just nod. Then I throw my arms around him. Because I’m so happy to see him again. I tell him so.

“As am I. And so happy I save your suitcase. Céline insist to take it away, but I say no, she will come back to Paris and want her things.”

I find my voice. “Wait, how’d you know I was here? I mean, today?”

“Marco just text me an American girl was looking for me. I knew it had to be you. Come.”

I follow him back inside the club, where this Marco is now mopping the floor and refusing to look at me. I have a hard time looking at him after calling him an ass**le in French.

“Je suis très désolée,” I apologize as I shuffle past him.

“He’s Latvian. His French is new, so he’s timid to speak,” Yves says. “He is the cleaner. Come downstairs, that is where your suitcase is.” I glance at Marco and think of Dee, and Shakespeare, and remind myself that things are rarely what they appear. I hope he didn’t understand my French curses, either. I apologize again. The Giant beckons downstairs to the storeroom. In a corner, behind a stack of boxes, is my suitcase.

Everything is as I left it. The Ziploc with the list. The souvenirs. My travel diary with the bag of blank postcards inside. I half expect it all be covered in a layer of dust. I finger the diary. The souvenirs from last year’s trip. They’re not the memories that matter, the ones that lasted.

“It is very nice suitcase,” the Giant says.

“You want it?” I ask. I don’t want to lug it around with me. I can ship the souvenirs home. The suitcase is just extra baggage.

“Oh, no, no, no. It is for you.”

“I can’t take it. I’ll take the important things, but I can’t carry all this with me.”

He looks at me seriously. “But I save it for you.”

“The saving is the best part, but I really don’t need it anymore.”

He smiles, the whites of his teeth gleaming. “I am going to Roché Estair in the spring, to celebrate my brother’s graduation.”

I fish out the important things—my diary, my favorite T-shirt, earrings I’ve missed—and put them in my bag. I put all the souvenirs, the unwritten postcards in a cardboard box to ship home. “You take this to Roché Estair for the graduation,” I tell him. “It would make me happy.”

He nods solemnly. “You did not come back for your suitcase.”

I shake my head. “Have you seen him?” I ask.

He looks at me for a long moment. He nods again. “One time. The day after I meet you.”

“Do you know where I might find him?”

He strokes the goatee on his chin and looks at me with a sympathy I could really do without. After a long moment, he says, “Maybe you should better speak with Céline.”

And the way he says it, it implies all the things I already know. That Willem and Céline have a history. That I might’ve been right to doubt him all along. But if the Giant knows any of that, he’s not saying. “She is off today, but sometimes she comes to the shows at night. Androgynie is playing, and she is very good friends with them. I will see if she is coming and let you know. Then you can find out what you need. You can call me later, and I will let you know if she will be here.”